News

First ever field synopsis of genetic association studies in dystonia

27. July 2018

Olena Ohlei, MS, first author of the new dystonia field synopsis.

Researchers from LIGA together with two colleagues from the Institute of Neurogenetics this month published the first ever field synopsis for genetic association studies in dystonia. The study, led by LIGA PhD student Olena Ohlei, aimed at separating the wheat from the chaff for genetic association results in datasets of isolated dystonia. To this end, we scrutinized more than 3,500 published articles resulting in the inclusion of 42 independent publications allowing 134 meta-analyses on 45 variants across 17 genes. While subsequently performed meta-analyses pinpointed several association signals with variants in TOR1A, DRD1, and ARSG, no single variant displayed compelling association with dystonia in the available data highlighting the need for additional large-scale studies. The publication was part of an ongoing DFG-funded project led by Lars Bertram and Jeanette Erdmann at the Institute of Cardiogenetics. The Ohlei et al paper is now published in the Journal Parkinsonism and Related Disorders (after having been posted on bioRxiv prior to peer-review).